‘Why Buhari is afraid of merger with ANPP’

The All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) may not be part of the ongoing merger plans between opposition parties initiated by the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), it was learnt yesterday.

This is because former Head of State and National Leader of CPC, General Muhammadu Buhari, is afraid there are some members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) within the ANPP that will not allow the merger to work.

Last Wednesday, Buhari inaugurated an 18-man committee on the merger chaired by the former Deputy Governor of Bauchi State, Alhaji Garba Gadi, but said the ANPP will not be part of the merger for now without concrete reasons.

Asked why ANPP is left out of the merger, Buhari explained his former party will later join the alliance.

But a member of the CPC inaugurated commit-tee, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, who is also the National Publicity Secretary of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), told The Nation that Buhari is afraid of the merger plans with ANPP.

Okechukwu vowed that the committee members will do all they can to ensure that the merger, work to uproot the PDP in 2015.

He admitted ANPP National Chairman, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, is keenly interested in the merger, but said the CPC and the ACN will be extremely careful.

Okechukwu said: “There is a national consensus that we must vote out PDP because the party has failed for 13 years.

“PDP does not have any idea about governance except to share the money.

“The ACN and CPC have come to conclusion that PDP must be voted out of power even if APGA is going to join this race, the party is welcome.

“This first stage is between CPC and ACN. ANPP and a faction of APGA and other political parties, even those deregistered will be part of this merger.

He went on: “As General Muhammadu Buhari has said, CPC and ACN have reached a certain level before the 2011 election.

“The two parties are on the same page. Don’t forget that we were in ANPP before we left.

“We know that within the ANPP, there are some associates of the PDP there.

“That is what General Muhammadu Buhari is afraid of. There are some of PDP elements that may not allow the merger to work. “And Buhari is of the opinion that we should allow the merger to work before we accommodate ANPP.”